it may be inferred that the "Lass of Lochroyan" did
not owe her "middle jimp" to any very deadly artificial means of
compression.

One of the most remarkable instances that can be adduced is in the
original version of "Annie Laurie," by William Douglas, a Scottish poet
of the seventeenth century. It has been so completely displaced by a
later version that few are probably acquainted with the song as written
by Douglas:

She's backit like a peacock,
She's breisted like a swan,
She's jimp about the middle,
Her waist ye weel micht span;
Her waist ye weel micht span,
And she has a rolling ee, etc.

In view of all these passages is there any wonder that it is hard to
persuade women that men do not admire "wasp" waists? How are they to
know that the "jimp middle" of the ballads was in its jimpness in
proportion to the shoulders? The trouble is, that the early rhymesters
have used up the only side of the question capable of poetical
treatment. One cannot sing of the reverse: no poet could seriously lift
up his voice in praise of her "ample waist" or "graceful portliness." In
order to reach woman's ear, modern writers must adopt a different
course, and it is curious to contrast their utterances with those of the
ballad-makers. Place Charles Reade by the side of Douglas, and then what
becomes of the "waist ye weel micht span"? After showing how the liver,
lungs, heart, stomach and spleen are packed by Nature, the novelist
asks: "Is it a small thing for the creature (who uses a corset) to say
to her Creator, 'I can pack all this egg-china better than you can,' and
thereupon to jam all those vital organs close by a powerful, a very
powerful, and ingenious machine?"

Every lady should read _A Simpleton_, and learn something of the
monstrous wrong she inflicts upon herself by trying to compass an
artificially-produced "middle sae jimp." It will prepare her for Mrs.
Haweis's lessons upon _The Art of Beauty_. One or two passages will give
a hint of their flavor: "Nothing is so ugly as a pinched waist: it puts
the hips and shoulders invariably out of proportion in width.... In
deforming the waist almost all the vital organs are affected by the
pressure, and the ribs are pushed out of their proper place."
"Tight-lacing is ugly, because it distorts the natural lines of the
figure, and gives an appearance of uncertainty and unsafeness.... Men
seldom take to wife a gi